


The Gentle

by queen_edmund_pevensie



Series: Kings and Queens of Old [3]
Category: Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types, Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Drama, Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, because Susan ... is The Gentle for a reason
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-17
Updated: 2017-01-17
Packaged: 2018-09-18 05:00:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9369029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queen_edmund_pevensie/pseuds/queen_edmund_pevensie
Summary: Susan was always gentle, though her siblings did not always like it.





	1. Prologue

When Susan Pevensie was eleven years old she stepped into a wardrobe and came out on the other side a queen. She was a lot of things back then –stubborn and practical most of all. She liked to think herself grown-up, smart and realistic, but her brothers found her to be a bossy know-it-all, and her sister thought her dull. They all loved her of course (even Edmund, though he never would have admitted it), but not a single one of them would have called her "gentle," except perhaps her mother, who saw how beautiful and kind Susan was. She certainly was gentle before she went of Narnia, and she certainly was after –long after she left and it became a sad and distant memory, long after her family passed on and to even think on the rushing waters and rolling hills of her youth broke her heart. Susan never thought herself gentle, but every moment of her life, she tried to be.


	2. Chapter One: Promise

Susan is eleven. She is being sent away from home. It's for her safety, her mother tells her.

"But what about your safety?" Susan asks, in the dark, the night before her mother sends her off to the countryside. Edmund is asleep, but she thinks he may be faking, sniffing occasionally, his white fingers wrapped around the picture of their father. Peter is asleep for real and Lucy is curled against his chest. She is still awake, watching Susan and their mother. The shelter is quiet, except for Edmund's sniffling, but they don't dare go back out yet. Besides, Susan doesn't want to see her home in ruin.

Her mother smiles sadly. "I'll be fine," she promises, but Susan is grown-up enough to know that she can't promise something like that. "Someone has to be here," she adds, brushing a lock of Susan's dark hair out of her eyes. Susan's lip quivers but she doesn't cry.

"I'll miss you," Susan says.

"I'll miss you too," her mother promises. A real promise, one she can keep. "You'll help Peter and the Professor, won't you? Keep Edmund and Peter from each other's throats?"

Susan tries to smile. "Of course I will," she promises.

It's even harder than she thought it would be, and she thought it would be almost impossible. Peter and Edmund start fighting before they're even unpacked yet. Lucy is tucked into bed and the boys come to say goodnight in the girls' room.

"I'm not tired," Lucy complains with a yawn. "I don't want to sleep here." Edmund, who is in his pajamas, huffs irritably, but he doesn't say anything. Peter takes Lucy's hand in his and squeezes it for a second.

"Why don't Ed and I just stay here until you are tired?" he offers. Peter looks sharply at Edmund to get his support. "What do you say, Ed?" Edmund shrugs noncommittally and Peter looks for a second like he wants to get at it with him, but instead he squeezes Lucy's hand again, and turns on the radio and sits by the window, listening to the broadcasts, while Susan unpacks her own and Lucy's dresses, folding them neatly on the bed.

When the broadcast turns to news about the war, about the bombs being dropped on their home, Lucy's eyes tear up and Edmund looks suddenly ill and a little gray. Peter's attention is turned to the outside. Susan figures he's thinking about their mother, at home, all alone. About his friends who couldn't leave. About their father, in the trenches somewhere. Lucy is going to worry a hole in the sheet the way she's rubbing it, and Susan doesn't much care to listen either, so she turns the radio off herself, startling Peter back to reality. He looks at Susan, a little dazed, and Susan jerks her head toward Lucy, who looks exhausted and like she's prepared to stay up the rest of her life if she has to –if it means she can go home.

Peter pushes himself off the windowsill with a sigh and sits by Lucy's feet. Lucy says something about the sheets and she looks so sad. "We'll be home soon," Susan promises. She doesn't know if she can keep that promise, but –if it was within her power –she would.

"Yeah," Edmund scoffs. "If home's still there."

Peter shoots him a glare, and after that, after Edmund is pouting in the corner, and Lucy is dozing, Peter gives her a light kiss on the cheek, whispering, "Sweet dreams, Lu," and all but drags Edmund from their room across the hall where, after Lucy is asleep, Susan can hear Peter telling Edmund off, and Edmund's voice rising in pitch as he and Peter fight. And fight. And fight.

Lucy turns over to face Susan in the bed they're sharing. "I wish they wouldn't," Lucy sighs. Susan jumps at the sound of Lucy's voice, but smiles at her in the candlelight, and bites back her admonishment that Lucy should be asleep. "Me too," she says instead. "Don't worry," Susan tries to promise. "We will be home soon –sooner than you think. And then things will get back to normal."

Lucy sighs wearily and closes her eyes. "I hope so," she says, and Susan watches as her breathing evens out and her face relaxes until she's asleep for real. Eventually, after a bit of slamming and a lot of swearing, the boys quiet down too.

Lucy insists that she's found a whole country inside the upstairs wardrobe, and she's so serious about it that Peter leads them all into the room they found the other day and the three of them knock on the walls and the back of the wardrobe just to make sure. Peter says that it was a good joke and that Lucy really had them going, and Susan suppresses the tiny bit of eagerness she felt at the prospect of a magical land in the upstairs wardrobe. Of course it was a joke, Susan, she tells herself. There couldn't be a whole country in the upstairs wardrobe.

But Lucy doesn't lie and for all of her imagination, she doesn't like to lead her family on like that, and her face is very red when she insists that it was there. Peter is growing impatient, and so is Susan. It's not like her to harp on a joke like that and if it's not a joke then this war has finally taken its toll –driven Lucy mad enough to believe in magic beyond Father Christmas.

"That's enough, Lucy," Susan says shortly. The three of them –Peter, Susan, and Edmund –are all thinking the same thing: Lucy's lost it –or if not then how unfair it was that Lucy got to have a magical land all to herself, and she couldn't even share with the others.

"Well, I believe her," Edmund says suddenly.

Lucy narrows her eyes suspiciously. It's not like Edmund to speak up for her defense, even if he hadn't just gotten through telling the others how mad he thought she was. Susan and Peter look sharply at Edmund too. There's an excited glint in his eyes, and he can barely cover his smirk. Oh, Susan thinks tiredly. There'll be a row now.

"Yeah, of course," he says, looking at the others in supplication. "Didn't I tell you about the football field in the bathroom cupboard?"

Lucy doesn't try to hide her hurt. She had let a tiny part of her believe that Edmund was coming to her defense and Edmund, once again, let her down. Peter lets out a tiny puff of air. "Ed," he sighs.

"What?" Edmund spits back, like it's only the two of them in the room.

"Stop it," Peter says, casting a sidelong glance towards Lucy. "You just have to make everything worse, don't you?"

Edmund looks at Lucy, who is trying her hardest not cry, her face scrunched up and red. "It was only a joke," he insists.

"When are you going to learn to grow up?" Peter wonders, like he has the weight of the world on his shoulders, and Susan knows before the words are out of his mouth that Edmund is not going to like it –that he's going to be mad about it for days, and when Edmund storms out of the room, slamming as many doors as possible on his way, Susan saves anything she was going to say to Peter for later.

"Well that was nicely handled," Susan snaps, following Edmund.

Susan finds Edmund outside, sitting in the grass, fiddling with a stick and gouging the mud angrily. He's crying, but he's facing away from the house so that if anyone comes out he'll hear the creak of the door and have a few seconds to get a hold of himself before they see him.

"Go away," he says to Susan without turning around. He jabs the stick into the ground, flinging a clump of earth a few inches away from him.

Susan sighs. She doesn't know what she's doing out here anyway. It's not like Edmund will talk to her, and he certainly won't listen. "Why do you and Peter always have to fight?" Susan wonders aloud.

Edmund stiffens. He jams the stick into the ground with so much force that it shakes after he lets it go and he stands up, whirling to face her. "We don't always fight," he insists. There are still tear-marks on his face and a little bit of dirt under his nose. "And he always starts it! He always makes things a bigger deal than they need to be!"

"Edmund," Susan starts, but Edmund interrupts her.

"No!" he says firmly. "No! He didn't need to tell me to grow up! That's none of his business! I didn't…I didn't want to make Lucy cry!"

"Then what did you want to do, Ed?" Susan wonders. "And last night –you didn't want to make her cry then, either?"

"No," Edmund grumbles, scuffing his shoe in the mud. It only stopped raining about five minutes ago so the ground is soggy and the air is heavy. "I dunno." He looks up at Susan. "But you and Peter –you can't boss me around. You're not my parents."

"We're in charge," Susan reasons.

"The professor is in charge. If he wasn't, then we wouldn't have been sent here," Edmund reminds her. "If you and Peter could really take care of us, then we wouldn't need a grown-up to watch us. Stop acting like you can boss me around!"

Susan is at the end of her wit with Edmund. His arms are crossed and his shoes and the back of his shorts are covered in mud. He looks petulant and ungrateful. "I can boss you around," she says. "Mum said that Peter and I are in charge. And we wouldn't need to boss you around if you behaved like a grown-up."

"But Lucy gets to make up worlds in the back of closets and doesn't get treated like a kid!" Edmund counters. "You always take everything Lucy says so seriously. You both like her better."

"Because she isn't a brat," Susan says and Edmund growls in frustration and kicks the stick he stuck in the ground, snapping it in half.

"Did you just come out here just to yell at me? Cuz I came out here not to be yelled at," Edmund says, throwing himself back onto the muddy ground. It makes a soft squishing sound beneath him. "I just wanna be left alone." There's something pathetic about his voice, about his hunched shoulders against the gray background that reminds Susan why she came out here in the first place and makes her soften her tone when she speaks next.

"No," she admits. "I wanted to make sure you were okay."

Edmund shrugs. "I'm not the one seeing things," he reasons, going back to shoveling out a hole in the professor's lawn.

"Come back inside," Susan suggests. "Please, Ed, I'm sorry."

Edmund shrugs in answer, but he doesn't make a move or say a word. After a few minutes, Susan leaves him to sit in the grass by himself, and doesn't check to make sure he comes in after her.

That night is the worse it will get, Susan hopes. Edmund, still raging from earlier, angry at Peter and at Susan and at Lucy, and Lucy all hopeful that Peter will believe her at last, counting on Edmund, which is really her first mistake.

"Tell them, Edmund," Lucy says, and Edmund goes very white and very still. "Tell them about Narnia."

"O-oh," stutters Edmund looking from Peter to Susan to Lucy. Looking at the ground. When he looks back up he's got that same face from earlier and Susan knows what's going to happen next, even if Lucy doesn't. "Well, I was just playing along," he says, all superior, like he's more than just a year older than Lucy. He turns to Peter. "I'm sorry. I know I shouldn't encourage her, but you know what little children are like these days…" Lucy turns very red, like she might yell at Edmund, but before she can get a word out, she bursts into tears, fleeing the boys' room.

Edmund looks very proud of himself for a second and looks at Peter and Susan smugly before they can fly after her. "See," he says, gesturing broadly. "There she goes again. What's the matter with her? When will she grow up?"

"Shut up," Peter growls, shoving Edmund aside roughly. "You're such a little bully, Edmund," he mutters under his breath, and flies after Lucy. Susan throws a disgusted look over her shoulder at Edmund, following Peter out of the room.

"I know what I saw, and I don't care what you say," Lucy tells Susan when she comes back to bed, later that night. Susan doesn't say anything. She just climbs into bed next to Lucy. Lucy doesn't look like she's been crying. She looks perfectly sound and confident in what she saw. "I don't care if Edmund says we've just been pretending. I know we weren't. I don't know what's wrong with him."

"Okay," Susan concedes. She's much too tired to argue with Lucy, and the professor said to give her the benefit of the doubt. And Edmund has a history of lying, and he gets such a thrill out of it too. She leans a little closer to Lucy. "I don't know what's wrong with Edmund either," she whispers, her tone a little lighter than it was before.

Lucy gasps and giggles a little. "Susan!" she chides. "You shouldn't!" But Lucy is smiling, and that's what matters. After a couple of seconds of silence (or almost silence –Peter and Edmund were at it again across the hall) Lucy sits up in bed. "Are you saying you believe me?"

Susan sits up too. "What happened to not caring what we thought?"

"That was before when I thought you all were against me," Lucy reminds her. "But if you're on my side…"

"I'm not on anyone's side, Lucy," she says. "And I'm not against you."

"So you believe me?" Lucy presses. "You believe that I really did see Narnia."

"Go to sleep, Lu," Susan says instead, laying down.

Lucy lays down too, closer to Susan than she was before, and Susan wraps her arms around her sister. "Thanks, Su," she whispers before she falls asleep.


End file.
